25 THINGS TO DO ON TURNING 25

1. Travel
2. Learn a musical instrument
3. Study
4. Cook
5. Drive
6. Write
7. Own film DVD’s
8. Drink more alcohol
9. Fall in love
10. Drink more water
11. Grow my hair
12. Learn how to Jive/Salsa/Belly
13. Do something illegal
14. Protest
15. Join a satanic cult or start my own
16. Go underground for a while
17. Click more photographs
18. Dance
19. Read Colin Thubron
20. Hang out, chill, relax
21. A day of Spa
22. Attend a film festival
23. Keep up the sarcasm
24. Let go

25. Dream on

WE DON’T NEED NO EDUCATION
How I define Pune

I always think of how pretty the city of Pune is, whenever I’m on my way out from there. It’s always been from behind an auto rickshaw seat, with luggage perched over my legs speeding towards an airport or a railway station, that I’ve reflected over my experiences and appreciated what’s moving past in front me and what’s being left behind.

There’s an old world charm about Pune. A place you’d probably go home to your grandparents and have wonderful childhood memories of playing under a tree. Of course the landscape has changed now, but the feeling is still there. The fact that it is a student city – makes it more of a Gurukul-like place. A place where you go as a student and then leave it as an adult.

And after spending a month at FTII this year, I wonder what it would be like if this institution that’s taught and inspired so many weren’t situated in Pune. The first talkie that came out of Prabhat studios, where FTII stands today was ‘Sant Tukaram’. Ironically the dhobi in FTII is called Tukaram and is probably as old as the studios themselves. And I feel that the spirit of that great Bhakti saint carries on year after year in this grand old campus… where great filmmakers and artists have applied their mind, body and soul (and lost it all) to the ultimate art of cinema.

Maybe it’s my fascination with anything that has a history. Maybe it’s my admiration for the free and the liberated. Its what defines the city of Pune for me – from the creative nuts at FTII to its IT types, from its foreign student population of the middle-east nations to the hippies of the Osho ashram.

It’s a state of mind.

They all come here to learn and be free.

MY YEAR IN DELHI

I finished reading William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns one year ago, cuddled up in a Y.W.C.A hostel room on a late rainy evening in Mumbai. I was in Maximum City – but the charms of the city that Dalrymple described before me took me to places in my imagination. It was mind travel through a city I knew nothing about and had a great deal of misconceptions.

I sit here today typing in front of an office terminal, in Delhi a year after, thinking how would I describe this past year? Have those misconceptions been cleared or have new ones taken their place?

Or maybe some of you who have always lived here may disagree with my romantic views. When I look at this city I think of images, frames, fleeting visuals that come and go. These are my memory postcards - which I’m unable to put in words.

That makes me a bad writer and William D a genius. For nothing puts my feelings into better words than the following excerpt from his book. A year ago it filled me with curiosity while today it’s the metaphor of my life.

“All the different ages of man were represented in the people of the city. Different millennia co-existed side by side. Minds set in different ages walked the same pavements, drank the same water, returned to the same dust.

But it was not until months later, when I met Pir Sadr-ud-Din, that I learned the secret that kept returning to new life. Delhi, said Pir Sadr-ud-Din, was a city of djinns. Though it had been burned by invaders time and time again, millennium after millennium, still the city was rebuilt; each time it rose like a phoenix from the fire.

Just as Hindus believe that a body will be reincarnated over and over again until it becomes perfect, so it seemed Delhi was destined to appear in a new incarnation century after century. The reason for this, said Sadr-ud-Din, was that the djinns loved Delhi so much they could never bear to see it empty or deserted.

To this day every house, every street corner was haunted by them. You could not see them, said Sadr-ud-Din, but if you concentrated you would be able to feel them: to hear their whisperings, or even if you were lucky, to sense their warm breath on your face.”

Feels good to be here.

[Photo Credit: Harmanpreet Kaur]

GOA - AUGUST 2007

Calangute beach, 5:30pm: Nothing’s changed here. As you walk down towards the beach, random strangers call you from behind empty bar tables. And you just say Hi to the friendly locals and smile. It’s so chilled out over here. No pretensions, because like you - everyone is in a holiday mood. So, service is slow wherever you go, but who cares. Goa is there to lounge and let lounge, to drink and let drink, to be and let be…

It’s much better here in the rainy season, though tides can get high…. But it’s a different high altogether to zip around in the rain and catch Goa’s lush green landscape, mountains and its coastline - at their best in the monsoon weather.

Coming back to Goa, two years after I came here last, was not just a drunken state of happiness, but it truly felt like the Bob Marley song, “I know a place, where we can carry on.”

[Photo Credit: Urvashi Sibal]

COLOURFUL JAIPUR

Two days in the city of Jaipur were a burst of colours. From the sandstone pink of the city walls to the bandhani's and mojaris in the bazaars and the colourful costumes of the local folk. Jaipur was a treat for the senses. Vibrant colours, beautiful architecture, a rich cuisine, and a variety of sights and sounds that leave a lasting impression of a city seeped in history and culture.

There's not really much to do except for some basics - check out old forts, eat well and most of all shop! But apart from these basics, Jaipur packs a punch because it combines the old with the new and the rural way of life with the modern.

Like Delhi, Jaipur has history dating back centuries which makes a drive through the city, a drive through history. Driving along the Delhi-Jaipur highway, you pass rolling hills that are a part of the Aravalli range, and arid vegetation that form a part of the desert landscape. Sharp, bare and desolate. There is something eeringly beautiful about it. And if you are driving to Jaipur in the night, then be prepared to fall into a spell. For the rising and falling silhouttes of the rolling ranges won't stop haunting your mind throughout the journey.

You must enter Jaipur's city walls after the sun goes down. Ancient walls crawl across the edges of the rugged landscape, like the Great Wall of China and you meander round them till you see the Amer fort bathed in yellow lights. Unnoticable in the night, the pink coloured walls and buildings of Jaipur by daylight, seem quite unbelievable. I mean, you've always read about how pink Jaipur is, but when you see it with your eyes, you wonder how the colour pink can be a part of the city's culture. Sandstone pink can be found everywhere in the old areas of the city, including the newly constructed flyovers - merging the old with the new so well.

The bazaars by the Hawa Mahal are full of everything that you can think of as ethnic and typically rajasthani. Delightfully coloured mojaris, bandhanis, razais, silver jewellery, hand crafted umberellas and pottery - it's a shopper's paradise.

And you cannot leave without checking out Chokhi Dhani. You'll be reminded of it all along your drive to Jaipur through the numerous hoardings on the highway, and you'll keep wondering how its pronounced. And at peak tourist season, it is PACKED! Spend a few hours in this typical rajasthani village set up for your pleasure - to live like your ancestors did, stretching it out on the charpai, sipping tea in kulhars and playing marbles. But you get to see the rajasthani fare that you came there for from folk dances, puppet shows and camel rides to yes, the food.

Its one big mela, one huge party! Just like the city itself - where the fun never ends.

[Photo Credit: Harmanpreet Kaur]